Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/tag/juvenile-justice-system-reform/)
A federal judge Friday ordered Louisiana prison officials to stop housing youth offenders in the former death row of Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola and to relocate them within one week, after finding that conditions at Angola constitute cruel and unusual punishment and violate the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
Liz Ryan said she was surprised when the White House tapped her — a prominent advocate who has dedicated her professional life to reforming the juvenile justice system — to be the administrator of the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention in May 2022.
Juvenile Justice Resource Hub curates research on juvenile justice policy and practice, reviews of innovative programs and various other explorations and advisories on topics including justice reform, mental and behavioral health, gun violence, foster care, racial and economic parity/disparities.
If brain development continues until about age 25 why does the U.S. criminal justice system continue to treat these young people as if they’re fully developed adults?
Former Georgia congressman turned Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich is among a group of big name conservatives supporting a new NAACP study pushing for a major criminal justice system overhaul. The former U.S. House speaker has joined other fellow conservatives in promoting the civil rights organization’s latest report, highlighting racial disparities in incarceration rates and the imbalance between prison funding and education spending around the country. Dubbed “Misplaced Priorities,” it asserts there is an inverse relationship between exploding prison budgets and massive cutbacks in public higher education funding. “Over the past 20 years, nationwide spending on higher education increased by 21 percent, while corrections funding increased by 127 percent,” said Robert Rooks, director of NAACP Criminal Justice Programs. “Even during the recession, education budgets dropped while a majority of states have continued to increase the amount they spent on prisons. During that same time we’ve seen higher education costs in states being shifted to working families.”
Rooks said it is time for a major paradigm shift in regards to the nation’s criminal justice practices.